Taking back stolen time with Odie Leigh

I arrived at Cafe du Nord in San Francisco accompanied by the jittery flutter of anxiety that whispered *you’re going to miss Odie’s set you’re going to miss Odie’s set you’re going to miss Odie’s set.*

However, luck won out and I entered the venue to the sound of the openers playing the last of their songs. The place was packed with people, specifically queers, but then again I was in San Francisco in the middle of Pride month. Spotted backstage was one of Odie Leigh‘s good friends, fellow folk singer-songwriter Olive Klug, fresh off a tour of their own in May at the same venue, and set to headline the Perseids Music Festival in Nashville this summer.

Our headliner, Odie Leigh, showed up on stage in true folk-indie singer fashion-in sailor pants, a messy bun, and a bandana around her neck. She spoke to the audience for the first time that night by asking us to scream as loud as we could on the count of three. “1, 2, 3!”. We screamed pretty loudly, but apparently that wasn’t enough. She asked us to scream again, and it’s safe to say that we all released some bottled-up rage the second time around.

Odie started off her set with “Bigger Fish,” pleading with a hypothetical partner, her husky voice singing, “Be kind to me.” She follows up with “Habits Held,” off of her How did it seem to you? EP, deftly fingerpicking her guitar, swaying her head and body in a manner I can only describe as Odie: it’s infectious and folksy and makes you want to frolic in a forest amidst the birds and the bees. Subsequently, she started talking to the audience more, disarming us with her charm, joking, “People always tell me I look like I smell bad,” and then after switching guitars said, “I’m morally opposed to tuning my guitar.”

Standing there a few feet away from her felt like a conversation rather than a concert, like being with a friend who would, alongside playing their guitar, tell you their story by extracting humor from it (don’t we all?) Her reaction to people comparing her to John Prine (an American country-folk music singer) was righteously indignant, quipping, “Folk music has a lot more history than successful white men,” following up her quip with a list of female folk musicians who inspired her, including Elizabeth Cotten and Connie Converse. This was her introduction to a cover of “Roving Woman” by Connie Converse, a song off of a collection of songs called How Sad, How Lovely, released in 2009, 35 years after Converse mysteriously disappeared at the age of 50.

After this brief detour from her own music, Odie returned to it with “Ronnie’s Song,” saying that she wrote the song about her friend Ronnie because they had a bad day. After, she prefaced the next section of the concert by relating that she’s been writing unpleasant music lately, singing, “Sheep Song,” which was released about a week before the concert. Watching Odie perform, “Double Shift,” a heart-rending take on being the other woman, was terrifyingly intimate. As she gritted her teeth and repeatedly sang “I’m gonna change, I’m gonna change, I’m gonna change,” she made us reckon with the consequences of choosing the things that are wrong for you.

My favorite part of the night was the beginning of the end, and it started with her singing “Chutes and Ladders,” the first song I’d ever listened to of hers, a frisky little love song that encapsulates the excitement and uncertainty of beginning a relationship with someone. But the finale of her set was what cemented her, for me, as one of the greatest on-stage presences I’ve seen in concert. She talked about how the next song takes her back to when she was working 15-18 hours a day to come back to a person who made her miserable, yet proceeded to spend the rest of her time with anyway. She said, “We’re going to reclaim some stolen time right now,” and sang “Take Back” from her How did it seem to you? EP.

“Scream it!” she says, smiling, and we sing, “I’m gonna take back some of my time, I’m gonna take back…take back.”

Her new EP The Only Thing Worse Than A Woman Who Lies Is A Girl Who’ll Tell Truths is streaming now on Spotify and Apple Music.

Featured image taken from the official Odie Leigh website. Article and concert photo by Anoushka Ghosh